Work Text:
Celebration of a Funeral
he learns it early
that if you switch on the brightest of lights
the bruises often disappear.
So he becomes fluorescent.
Confetti bloodstream, champagned pulse,
a calender and red lipped girls.
Their lips brush against his bruised skin
They murmer white names, they don't even care to learn his name.
It's the young appetite,
the fake anesthesia,
and everything else lessens the pain.
Gold rests against his sternam,
A cross- a shiny little thing,
heavy enough to make him cry into the darkest of nights.
He presses his lips to it,
cold metal against chapped unloved lips,
memory against the heavy tongue.
And for the time being, in between camera flashes, he feels better.
The one who stays, is quiet.
They don't talk much, they let the hunger take over.
Young appetite.
Half a decade later, when he is held without being consumed,
his lungs forget the choreography.
Now there's a palm that rests on his sternam along with the cross.
The weight is doubled, but somehow everything feels lighter.
He survives the funeral,
he celebrates the night.